1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to content available over a wide-area network, and more particularly, to methods, techniques, and structures for determining whether to provide an alternate web page (or alternate content) based on data relating to content of a target page.
2. Description of the Related Art
The Internet includes a vast number of websites, each of which may include a variety of web pages having different content. These websites, pages, and content are constantly changing. Accordingly, over time, a particular page may no longer be available, such as when a domain name or link path is changed (creating a broken link), when a company that owns a website goes out of business and the domain expires, etc. Still further, as time passes, the content of a particular page may lose relevancy or become stale. For example, consider a web page that describes a particular product offered for sale by a merchant. If a user attempts to access that page months or years later, even if the page still exists, that particular product may no longer be available, either via the web page or from the merchant generally. As another example, a web page might offer a certain product (e.g., a shoe) for sale in a variety of sizes. However, the web page might not have that product available in the right size for a particular user (e.g., a user who needs a size 13EE shoe). Thus, while some users could find the web page helpful, that particular user might find the web page useless. A user that selects a link to useless content or a link that is broken may thus end up viewing a page that is not helpful (such as a page with no option to “buy,” or a page without the right-sized product in stock), or the user may simply receive an error message (such as a “page not found” error). Such a result may cause a bad user experience, as well as loss of traffic, sales, and/or revenue for a website or an affiliate associated with a transaction.